


An Absence of Original Thought

by LayALioness



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kitty goes south for the winter, and finds herself by the sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Absence of Original Thought

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the show. 
> 
> References to Kitty's and another character's sexual assault/torture, so be forewarned.

Kitty does not go back to London, but instead takes a bus south. She’s never lived anywhere considered very sunny, and she thinks she might enjoy it. She never traveled much in her life—following Sherlock to New York was really the farthest she’s ever gotten, and even then, it hadn’t been her idea.

Very little of her life can actually be called _hers_ , she’s realized. First, she was her parents’, and then she spent those two years living in a rat-infested flat with a girl named Xara, named after the sleeping pills her mother used to take. They hadn’t had a sink in the bathroom, and had to brush their teeth in the kitchen, or sometimes spit out the window.

Then she was Gruner’s, but she tries not to think about that.

Not _forget_ —she could never _forget_ —but, in the end it was Joan who told her what she needed to hear. _Remembering the pain is not the same as letting it rule you_. She’s pretty sure Joan got it from some psychology textbook, or a pamphlet for domestic violence, but. It helped. A little. Still does.

And then she was on her own, again, but not really. She still had the scars on her back, that itched each time she took a shower. She still had the constant, _constant_ fear.

So she was still Gruner’s, even after he was gone, and she thinks that was probably the worst part. Escaping one cage for another—his ropes and basement, for her traitor mind.

That’s how Sherlock found her, in the end; like a stray cat in an alleyway, gone half-feral from the world’s abuse, and he’d offered his hand like a tin of fresh tuna. He’d offered to take her away, and she’d let him, because no one ever tells you how _hard_ it is, going it alone. She’d been surviving on those plastic Campbell Soup bowls, and slept with a box cutter on her pillow and running shoes on her feet. Just in case.

It was always _just in case_ , with Kitty. She’d never been careful, growing up. She’d never been shy. She’d broken bones from climbing too high in the trees, just to prove that she could do it. She’d asked every date to each dance, and then twirled alone in the middle of the room when they were too nervous to hold her.

She thinks that might be what led Gruner to her, in the end. He’d seen something bright and strong in her, and wanted to see what it would take to break it. He wanted to see her snuffed out.

And she wasn’t, not really. They didn’t find her body naked on the pier, and she’s not ungrateful for that. She knows what might have happened; just another victim with seaweed in her hair and burn marks on her back. _Branding_ her as his, the faceless man so impressive he can squash even the toughest spirit. It was always about pride with that man, even when she didn’t know his name. Even when all she knew was the stench of his warm breath as he laughed while he broke her. All she knew was the voice, telling her she would never see the sunlight again. Telling her she belonged to him. Telling her she was something to be owned.

In the end, all she needed was the voice after all. But she still threw the acid, because she couldn’t help it.

Or, maybe she could help it, and she just didn’t want to. She wanted to hear him scream, like when she broke his fingers. She wanted to make him _feel it_. What it meant to be ruined. What it meant to be burned.

He took such pride in himself, in his work, in his face. She hopes that wherever he is now, he wretches each time he looks in the mirror.

Kitty takes a bus south. It’s large, and gray, and smells overwhelmingly of diesel, which has always made her nauseas. She refuses to vomit, swallowing the urge down, and leans her head against the window. It knocks against her skull a little with each small dip in the road, but the glass is cool on her skin.

She cuts her hair in a rest stop bathroom, until it looks like a dark bowl on her head. She doesn’t bother dying it, the brown has always been too dark to take the color. She’d have to bleach it first, and she hates that smell too, and she doesn’t have the time or patience for it.

For half the trip she shares her bench seat with an elderly black woman named Lila, who reminds Kitty of her grandmother back in Paddington. She holds Lila’s extra yarn for her while she knits, and talks about her grandsons with pride. She’s going to Atlanta, to visit them. Andre, the oldest, is graduating from university, the first in their family. Kitty congratulates her, but says nothing else. Lila doesn’t seem to mind, and speaks enough for the both of them.

Kitty gets off in Wilmington, when the smell finally gets to be too much for her, and she grows tired of rushed dinners at gas stations every night. Lila hands her the gray-and-turquoise colored tea cozy she’s been working on, and wishes her good luck. Kitty waits to cry until she’s in the bus station bathroom, burying her face in the yarn.

She buys a room at the first hotel she sees, a surprisingly nice one, with an ocean view and cable television. The sheets are clean, and the toilet paper is folded decoratively.

It was surprisingly easy for her to forge a new identity; Sherlock had taught her that even before breaking in with elastics. She’d done it in an internet café back in Manhattan, just after identifying Gruner. Or Del, but he’ll always just be Gruner to her.

She found a Katherine Abigail Thomas, born and died in New Hampshire, at the ripe age of four months, in 1982. She took the number and applied for a social security card, and when it came in the mail just five days later, she went and took her driver’s test. It was relatively easy; Alfredo had taught her in one of the muscle cars he technically wasn’t allowed to drive.

She was glad to keep the name Katherine; she’d grown fond of it over time. _Kitty_ doesn’t feel quite as comfortable, anymore. It feels too much like what she used to be, that stray cat avoiding strangers in the street.

 _Katherine_ feels stronger, and more whole. Like her.

Kitty gets a job at a tourist shop, selling post cards and trinkets to tourists. They’re near the beach, so close the air smells like salt and the sidewalk is covered in sand. Her hair starts to curl, which she’s never seen it do before, and lighten in the sun. She’s glad now that she cut it short; the Wilmington heat is oppressive, and she starts to burn and peel every day.

She moves into a less nice hotel, to save money. The rooms on either side of her belong to a man with sex addiction, and a death metal garage band from Iowa, hoping to strike it big. Kitty notices things, deduces her way through life still, the way Sherlock taught her. She’s not sure she could ever stop.

She knows the sex addict is married, and happily, but doesn’t want to burden his wife with his addiction. She knows he’s been contemplating suicide, because the string from his blinds is constantly being untied and retied, like he can’t go through with it. The skin around his neck is pink and puffy, and she’d originally thought it was an asphyxiation kink—but his eyes are always sad.

She knows the garage band has four kids—and one is underage. They’re worried his parents will come after them. He likes to write postcards on the lawn chairs by the pool, but he never sends them out. He’s allergic to dogs, but wants one. His bandmate, the drummer, is secretly gay, and worried they won’t accept her, even though they clearly already know.

Kitty likes to write post cards, too. She picks the funny ones, with ironic drawings on the backs, or historical facts about the city. She tells Sherlock about her neighbors, and she tells Watson about the town. She never sends hers out, either, but keeps them in the drawer of her bedside table, with the Bible and Book of Mormon.

This city is unlike any she’s ever been to. It’s warm, and inviting, and somehow seems small even with its two hundred-thousand residents. The smell of the ocean—of sunlight and sea salt and sweet tea—clings to her hair and her clothes. She absolutely prefers it to diesel. She might prefer it to everything.

She’s been living in Wilmington for two months when she starts going back to meetings.

She’d found out about them her first week, after a google search at the nearby internet café. She’s been gathering the nerve to go.

It’s held in the basement of a church, which isn’t surprising. Everyone seems to think religion might help people like her, and maybe it does for some. But Kitty’s never much trusted it.

She doesn’t share, the first night. Or the second. She stays for the refreshments—Oreo’s and lukewarm coffee—on the third, and meets a woman named Marla. She’s a little older, and pretty, with a soft smile and sad eyes.

She squeezes Kitty’s wrist when they’re leaving, and says “Would you like to get a drink?”

Kitty hasn’t had sex since Gruner raped her. She tried masturbating once, after several months, but started hyperventilating before very long, and she hasn’t tried since. She went on two dates with a boy in New York, and they were lovely and he was charming and she’d let him kiss her at the end, but.

Kitty follows Marla to a bar that serves beer on tap made from all sorts of different fruits, and they get drunk on the pumpkin and boysenberry ones.

Or, at least as drunk as they let themselves get. Marla was raped by a family friend when she was seventeen, after he’d offered to drive her to prom. She can’t ride in a car with cracked vinyl seats without wanting to vomit. Neither of them like to really lose control.

Kitty lets Marla take her home to her pretty apartment, filled with house plants and paintings she bought at the flea market. She lets her kiss her neck, folding her hand down into her underwear to feel around.

“I’ll make it feel good,” Marla promises, sucking on her jaw, and fits a finger inside her.

“ _Oh_ ,” Kitty breathes, and Marla chuckles. They barely make it to the bed.

Kitty thinks it was probably better, having a woman as her first. Men are harder, and they all sort of grunt and grind the same. It would have reminded her of Gruner, and his hands around her neck, shoving her face against the ground.

But Marla just grazes her fingers down Kitty’s spine, pausing to stroke over her scars until she whimpers. She doesn’t hyperventilate, or get lost in any flashbacks, which she’d sort of worried about. Mostly she just feels warm, and taken care of.

She spends the night, and Marla types her number into Kitty’s prepaid before she leaves.

“In case you need anymore stress relief,” she smiles, but they both know Kitty probably won’t come back.

She still goes to the meetings, and Marla always saves her a seat. Sometimes she shares, but usually she just listens. She wants to hear about their pain, and how they overcome it. She’s analyzed her own more than enough.

Kitty’s been living in Wilmington for two months when she sees the notice. The shop she works at has a cork board on the front wall, for locals to pin up Missing Dog posters and advertisements for their new dentistry.

This notice is different. It’s plain, on a sheet of computer paper and tacked up with a green pin. The header reads CAPE FEAR COMMUNITY COLLEGE with a little logo, sort of like a yin-yang. Below that, it reads sort of like a promotion for a volunteer blood drive, except instead of donors, it’s asking for people who can teach.

_Classes and lectures are flexible, but we are primarily looking for math and sciences, and deductive reasoning professors._

Kitty’s eyes snag on the last bit— _deductive reasoning_.

She’d thought about starting her own private detective business, like Watson, but while Kitty has certainly gotten _better_ with people, she still isn’t _good_. Not like Sherlock or Watson or Marcus.

But she thinks back to all the teachers she’d had through her school years, and most of them were fairly no-nonsense and to the point, sort of like her. Her head’s still filled with Sherlock’s lessons and training. She sometimes sings Watson’s ridiculous song about the bones of the human body, in the shower. Alfredo taught her to hot wire a car, and Marcus taught her Spanish.

And if all else fails, she can just have the kids do crossword puzzles or something, like her college teachers gave as busy work. She liked doing crossword puzzles.

But Kitty never actually got a degree, in anything, let alone teaching. So she goes back to the internet café, and logs into the chatroom Sherlock showed her.

 _Everyone_ has liked Kitty since she sent them that snapchat of Sherlock cooking rotisserie chicken in a house coat, swaying a little to the sounds of DJ Beetz. She sends them a quick message, asking if it can be done, and within twenty-four hours Katherine Thomas has a PhD in Psychology, from Manchester, with her thesis titled The Specifics of Inductive Versus Deductive Reasoning. She reads it that night. It doesn’t really sound like her, but the prose is quite well done.

Kitty emails the address from the poster, and they ask her to come in for an interview on Wednesday. She goes to one of the cheaper boutiques and buys herself a navy blue pencil skirt and soft button-down shirt. It’s expensive, but she’s been spending most of her money just on food. She likes to have eggs for breakfast, the way Sherlock made them, and Watson instilled a very real love of fresh fruit and vegetables before Kitty left.

She goes to the library and reads a self-help book on job interviews. It doesn’t make her feel any less nervous.

Realistically, Kitty knows her world will not end if she doesn’t get the job. But she _wants_ it, and she hasn’t actually _wanted_ something in a very long time. Not since Sherlock offered her that extra plane ticket to the states.

She sleeps with her hair in little braids the night before, so the curls will be somewhat tame for the interview. The school building itself looks plain and unremarkable, exactly like every other community college, but it feels somehow different. _This_ community college could be _hers_.

She’s seen by a middle-aged woman who looks at her over a pair of wire-rimmed Prada glasses. She’s wearing a lavender sweater even though it’s eighty percent humidity out, and her hair is the shade of blonde that comes in a bottle. Kitty shakes her hand over the mahogany desk, and sits down.

“Your education is very impressive,” the woman—Ms. Kaczynski—says in a clipped voice.

“Thank you.”

“Why do you want to work at _this_ college?” Ms. Kaczynski asks, and Kitty steadies her breathing. The self-help book prepared her for this.

“I want to teach deductive reasoning,” she says, like it’s obvious. “You offer that class.”

Ms. Kaczynski hums, like she’s running Kitty’s answer through her mouth to taste it for lies. “Why do you think you deserve this position?” she asks, and Kitty blinks.

“You had skin cancer six months ago,” she says, and Ms. Kaczynski startles a little. “Or around six months ago. You have a son, due to graduate from high school soon. He doesn’t want to go to university. You’re fighting about it.” She hesitates a little, but Ms. Kaczynski is staring wide-eyed, and she’s already gone this far, so. “He doesn’t have a father.”

“How did you—” the woman stammers, and Kitty grins a little, to herself. She gestures to the scar by Ms. Kaczynski’s jaw.

“That mark, it’s from the dermatological treatment for skin cancer,” she explains. “It’s healing, but it’s not completely done.” She nods to the university applications peeking out from under a manila folder on the desk. “They’re not filled out yet, but you have them ready to take home, so the deadline must be soon. You rest your hands on them without thinking, protective, like they’re for someone you know personally.” She glances at the picture frame; from this angle, she can’t see the picture, but she had when she walked in. “You have the same eyes, and bone structure, and he looks seventeen-ish. All parents fight with their kids.”

Ms. Kaczynski clears her throat. “And, uh—his father?”

“You’re not wearing a wedding ring,” Kitty says softly. “I took a guess.”

“Well you’ve certainly made your point,” Ms. Kaczynski says primly, standing to her feet. Kitty follows her to the door. “Someone will give you a call by next week,” she promises.

She gets the job. She’ll have to buy more pencil skirts. She’ll have to make lesson plans, and order textbooks, and outline theories and set up an email account so her students can ask questions in the middle of the night.

She might have to move out of the hotel, but she’ll cross that bridge later.

Kitty sends out the first post card. It’s terribly outdated by now, so she scrawls _I applied for new job at college_ at the bottom. She signs it _You both will always be special to me too. I love you—that feels good to write. I love you, I love you, I love you._

 _Yours (and mine), Kitty_.

The smell of the ocean follows her home.


End file.
